With the release of the new Maxwell cards comes an opportunity for those with a smaller budget to still get a decent upgrade for their systems. Early adopters will often sell their previous GPUs once they've upgraded allowing you to get a better card than your budget would usually allow, though with a risk of ending up with a bum card. The ASUS ROG GTX 780 Ti MATRIX Platinum is a good example with a DirectCU II air cooler for general usage but the LN2 switch will also allow more extreme cooling methods for those looking for something a little more impressive. The factory overclock is not bad at 1006/1072MHz core and 7GHz effective memory but the overclock [H]ard|OCP managed at 1155/1220MHz and 7.05GHz pushes the performance above that of the R9 290X of the same family. If you can find this card used at a decent price it could give you more of an upgrade than you thought you could afford.

"In today's evaluation we are breaking down the ASUS ROG GTX 780 Ti MATRIX Platinum video card. We put this head-to-head with the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum. Which provides a better gaming experience, best overclocking performance, and power and temperature? Which one provides the best value? "

PNY is not as heavily marketed as some GPU resellers in North America but that doesn't mean they are not hard at work designing custom cards. Hardware Canucks tried out the Customized OC GTX 780 and 780 Ti recently with the factory overclock as well as pushing the cards to the limit by manual overclocking. Using EVGA's Precision overclocking tools they pushed the GTX 780 to 1120MHz Core, 6684MHz RAM and the Ti to an impressive 1162MHz Core, 7800MHz RAM. Read on to see how effective the custom cooler proved to be as it is also a major part of the Customized series.

"PNY's latest Customized series will be rolling through their GTX 780 and GTX 780 Ti lineups, bringing high end cooling and increased performance."

While the world still waits for stock of the custom cooled R9 290X and R9 290 cards from AMD's partners to show up in stores, Gigabyte was showcasing its WindForce models on the floor at CES 2014.

The Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD is an R9 290X graphics cards that includes the company custom designed WindForce, triple fan cooler. The cooler is rated at 450 watts of dissipation, but hopefully you'll never actually be drawing that from this single GPU graphics card. The core clock on this model will be slightly overclocked, going from the stock 1000 MHz to 1040 MHz. Hopefully we'll have a review sample soon so we can verify that it maintains that overclocked clock speed throughout the gaming workloads.

Using the very same cooler is the GV-N78TGHZ-3GD based on the GeForce GTX 780 Ti GPU. In fact, without my tell you which card was which, you'd likely have no way to tell them apart without looking at the PCB more closely. Gigabyte will be setting the base clock on this model at 1085 MHz and the Boost clock at 1150 MHz.

The cards will also include a back plate on the rear of the PCB to help protect the components and ICs while also strengthening the board during shipping general use. Gigabyte says these cards will only carry and MSRP that is $20-50 more than the reference cards so look for each of them this month!

EVGA Brings Custom GTX 780 Ti Early

Reference cards for new graphics card releases are very important for a number of reasons. Most importantly, these are the cards presented to the media and reviewers that judge the value and performance of these cards out of the gate. These various articles are generally used by readers and enthusiasts to make purchasing decisions, and if first impressions are not good, it can spell trouble. Also, reference cards tend to be the first cards sold in the market (see the recent Radeon R9 290/290X launch) and early adopters get the same technology in their hands; again the impressions reference cards leave will live in forums for eternity.

All that being said, retail cards are where partners can differentiate and keep the various GPUs relevant for some time to come. EVGA is probably the most well known NVIDIA partner and is clearly their biggest outlet for sales. The ACX cooler is one we saw popularized with the first GTX 700-series cards and the company has quickly adopted it to the GTX 780 Ti, released by NVIDIA just last week.

I would normally have a full review for you as soon as we could but thanks to a couple of upcoming trips that will keep me away from the GPU test bed, that will take a little while longer. However, I thought a quick preview was in order to show off the specifications and performance of the EVGA GTX 780 Ti ACX.

As expected, the EVGA ACX design of the GTX 780 Ti is overclocked. While the reference card runs at a base clock of 875 MHz and a typical boost clock of 928 MHz, this retail model has a base clock of 1006 MHz and a boost clock of 1072 MHz. This means that all 2,880 CUDA cores are going to run somewhere around 15% faster on the EVGA ACX model than the reference GTX 780 Ti SKUs.

We should note that though the cooler is custom built by EVGA, the PCB design of this GTX 780 Ti card remains the same as the reference models.

Here is a roundup of the reviews of what is now the fastest single GPU card on the planet, the GTX 780 Ti, which is a fully active GK110 chip. The 7GHz GDDR5 is faster than AMD's memory but use a 384-bit memory bus which is less than the R9 290X which leads to some interesting questions about the performance of this card under high resolutions. Are you willing to pay quite a bit more for better performance and a quieter card? Check out the performance deltas at [H]ard|OCP and see if that changes your mind at all.

"NVIDIA's fastest single-GPU video card is being launched today. With the full potential of the Kepler architecture and GK110 GPU fully unlocked, how will it perform compared to the new R9 290X with new drivers? Will the price versus performance make sense? Will it out perform a TITAN? We find out all this and more."

GK110 in all its glory

I bet you didn't realize that October and November were going to become the onslaught of graphics cards it has been. I know I did not and I tend to have a better background on these things than most of our readers. Starting with the release of the AMD Radeon R9 280X, 270X and R7 260X in the first week of October, it has pretty much been a non-stop battle between NVIDIA and AMD for the hearts, minds, and wallets of PC gamers.

Shortly after the Tahiti refresh came NVIDIA's move into display technology with G-Sync, a variable refresh rate feature that will work with upcoming monitors from ASUS and others as long as you have a GeForce Kepler GPU. The technology was damned impressive, but I am still waiting for NVIDIA to send over some panels for extended testing.

Later in October we were hit with the R9 290X, the Hawaii GPU that brought AMD back in the world of ultra-class single GPU card performance. It has produced stellar benchmarks and undercut the prices (then at least) of the GTX 780 and GTX TITAN. We tested it in both single and multi-GPU configurations and found that AMD had made some impressive progress in fixing its frame pacing issues, even with Eyefinity and 4K tiled displays.

And today, yet another release. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780 Ti takes the performance of the GK110 and fully unlocks it. The GTX TITAN uses one fewer SMX and the GTX 780 has three fewer SMX units so you can expect the GTX 780 Ti to, at the very least, become the fastest NVIDIA GPU available. But can it hold its lead over the R9 290X and validate its $699 price tag?

A lot of news coming from the NVIDIA camp today, including some price drops and price announcements.

First up, the high-powered GeForce GTX 780 is getting dropped from $649 to $499, a $150 savings that will bring the GTX 780 into line with the competition of AMD's new Radeon R9 290X launched last week.

Next, the GeForce GTX 770 2GB is going to drop from $399 to $329 to help it compete more closely with the R9 280X.

Even you weren't excited about the R9 290X, you have to be excited by competition.

In a surprising turn of events, NVIDIA is now the company with the great bundle deal with GPUs as well! Starting today you'll be able to get a free copy of Batman: Arkham Origins, Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, GTX 780 and GTX 770. If you step down to the GTX 760 or 660 you'll lose out on the Batman title.

SHIELD discounts are available as well: $100 off you buy the upper tier GPUs and $50 off if you but the lower tier.

Need more news? The yet-to-be-released GeForce GTX 780 Ti is also getting a price - $699 based on the email we just received. And it will be available starting November 7th!!

With all of this news, how does it change our stance on the graphics market? Quite a bit in fact. The huge price drop on the GTX 780, coupled with the 3-game bundle means that NVIDIA is likely offering the better hardware/software combo for gamers this fall. Yes, the R9 290X is likely still a step faster, but now you can get the GTX 780, three great games and spend $50 less.

The GTX 770 is now poised to make a case for itself against the R9 280X as well with its $70 drop. The R9 280X / HD 7970 GHz Edition was definitely a better option with its $100 price delta but with only $30 separating the two competing cards, and the three free games, again the advantage will likely fall to NVIDIA.

Finally, the price point of the GTX 780 Ti is interesting - if NVIDIA is smart they are pricing it based on comparable performance to the R9 290X from AMD. If that is the case, then we can guess the GTX 780 Ti will be a bit faster than the Hawaii card, while likely being quieter and using less power too. Oh, and again, the three game bundle.

NVIDIA did NOT announce a GTX TITAN price drop which might surprise some people. I think the answer as to why will be addressed with the launch of the GTX 780 Ti next month but from what I was hearing over the last couple of weeks NVIDIA can't make the cards fast enough to satisfy demand so reducing margin there just didn't make sense.

NVIDIA has taken a surprisingly aggressive stance here in the discrete GPU market. The need to address and silence critics that think the GeForce brand is being damaged by the AMD console wins is obviously potent inside the company. The good news for us though, and the gaming community as a whole, is that just means better products and better value for graphics card purchases this holiday.